Each of the characters in The Eye-Dancers carries with them some emotional pain–a fear of rejection, a lack of self-confidence, family concerns, the loneliness of not fitting in at school. They also have a tendency to hide their issues–or at least try to. Marc Kuslanski, for example, underneath his know-it-all exterior, is a boy in desperate need of a friend. He doesn’t like to admit this, to himself or others, but his bouts of denial do not negate the truth. Thankfully for him, the events in the story unite him with Mitchell Brant, and a friendship is indeed formed.

In the short story “Cover-Up,” which I wrote a few years ago, the protagonist is also carrying with him the baggage of emotional pain, the burden of regret and self-blame. And, just like Marc, he tries his best to conceal it. But on a long, cross-country train trip, his seatmate sees right through his mask. Will he open up to this stranger, or throw up his customary wall?

I hope you enjoy “Cover-Up” . . .

“Cover-Up”

Copyright 2013 by Michael S. Fedison

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“So, do you wanna talk about it?” the young woman with the terrible scar asked.

He was sure he didn’t. What Patrick really wanted to do was sleep the ride away. But that didn’t seem likely. It was still light outside, and the train was bumpy, lurching often and sometimes feeling precariously close to derailing. Not for the first time, he asked himself why he hadn’t just flown. “Talk about what?”

The woman looked at him. Her eyes were a light, pastel shade of green. “You know . . . whatever’s bugging you. I can tell something’s really got you down.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I’m fine. Just tired, I guess.”

“It’s not good to hold things in, y’know,” the woman said. “You need to let it out. And I have a good ear. Really. All my friends say so.”

He silently wondered if she actually had any friends, she was so nosey. But she had seen right through his lie. Something was bothering him. He was annoyed that he wasn’t able to hide it, especially considering all the practice he’d had.

“Hey, really, I’m fine, so just drop it, okay?” he said. The train lurched, and he was thrust forward, grabbing the seatback in front of him. “Man, real smooth ride, huh?”

The woman smiled. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Patrick,” he said. Taking advantage of his window seat, he looked through the glass. They were traveling through the flat country of western Illinois now, past dead cornfields and crisp, white farmhouses with covered porches and weathervanes and dirty plastic sheets draped over the windows, flapping in the wind.

“Patrick.” His dad used to call him Pat. He didn’t even want to think of that name.

“So, Patrick . . . have you ever taken the train before? I love it. It’s like a real trip. You get a chance to really talk to people, y’know?”

No, he didn’t know, and he didn’t reply, hoping she would take the hint. He just wanted to be left alone. But she was hard to ignore. That scar was hard to ignore. It was the deepest, longest scar he had ever seen on a person’s face. He’d noticed it right away, as soon as she had boarded the train and decided to sit next to him. It started to the right of her eye, just below the brow, and twisted its way down her cheek, not stopping until it reached the point of her chin. Every time he glanced at her, his gaze fell upon it. What had caused such a gash in the first place? He had no idea, and preferred to keep it that way. Just another reason to stare out the window.

“Where are you headed, anyway?” she asked.

“Denver,” he said.

“Really? So am I!” Great. Just great. “You must’ve gone back home for the holidays. I did, too. But now it’s time to return to real life and work and paying the bills.”

“Yeah,” he said. Real life. Work. That was fine with him. He never should have gone home in the first place. The faster he forgot about it, the better. Mom and Jayne crying. Jayne laying into him for leaving a few days early.

“That’s just what you did before!” she’d said. “You ran away. Can’t you stay a measly couple days more? For Mom? And for me?”

But he couldn’t. What did his presence help anyway? They were all miserable together. He just wanted to leave, so he had.

The door at the far end of the car opened and then snapped shut. A couple, likely returning from a meal in the Dining Car, walked down the aisle. Three young children, two girls and a boy, trailed right behind them like a small school of pilot fish.

He looked out the window again. The winter sun, sinking to the horizon, gave off its last weak rays of the day. The porch light of a distant farmhouse flicked on and shone like a beacon across the frozen fields and dead, windswept grasses.

“So, what do you do, Patrick?” Becca asked him. “Where do you work?”

He wished she’d shut up. He wasn’t up for this. Still, he told her he was a technical writer who worked for a computer software company. He wrote the how-to manuals no one liked to read. But he enjoyed it. Wrestling with the minutia of the programs, figuring out the meaning behind the engineers’ logic, crafting documents that somehow translated the highly complex material into understandable language for the end users. It allowed him to get lost in the safe world of code and technology, sweeping unwanted emotions, unwanted memories, aside.

Another couple entered the car. The next call for the Dining Car would be due shortly. But he was thinking about going to the Lounge Car. A few stiff drinks sounded good. He was feeling warm, claustrophobic.

“You hot?” he asked her. “They got the heat turned up way too high.” He took off his jacket, placed it under his seat.

“I’m not hot,” she said. “But if I was hot, I wouldn’t know, so . . .”

What did she mean by that? He looked at her, but saw only the scar, which seemed almost to pulsate with a life, a vitality of its own. Whatever had happened to her must have caused unspeakable pain and anguish. But that thought just made him hotter, more in need of a drink.

He sidled past her, into the aisle. The train lurched again, and he almost fell. He would have, too, if he hadn’t grabbed onto the seat in time. She didn’t ask him where he was going, and he didn’t say. The last thing he wanted was for her to tag along.

“See you later,” she said.

He nodded, and headed for the Lounge Car.

It was almost deserted. Just a young couple sitting next to each eating pretzels and popcorn, and a bald, thin man sitting by himself looking out the window into the darkening twilight, his left hand wrapped around a glass of wine. Perhaps he, too, was attempting to drink away his troubles.

Patrick bought a beer, inwardly groaning that the kid behind the bar didn’t want to see ID. He had just turned thirty. Getting asked for ID used to be a hassle, five years ago. Now he felt slighted when someone failed to do it.

He sat down, as far away from the couple and the bald man as he could get. He needed to be left alone for a while, to enjoy the taste and buzz of the beer. He wanted peace and quiet, light, airy thoughts. But his mind had other ideas. He closed his eyes, and saw his mother crying. Not yesterday or the day before, but two years ago, after the accident. He saw his sister crumpled on the sofa, her face buried in a pillow. And he saw himself, standing there, hands in pockets, not knowing what to say or do.

It had all been his fault. It never should have happened—not to Dad. Patrick had recently moved into a new apartment across town, and didn’t visit his parents very often. That evening, he was coming over for supper. His car had a transmission leak and on the way over he had intended to buy some fluid. But his thoughts had drifted, he’d forgotten, and now the car was shifting with difficulty—the transmission was dry. When he said he needed to run to the automotive store, his father said not to think of it. He would go. Patrick should stay with his mom and his sister. Patrick protested—he was the one who forgot to buy the fluid, after all—but Dad was adamant.

“Be back in fifteen minutes,” Dad had said.

They never saw him again.

Patrick took a long drink of the beer, trying to submerge the memories in alcohol, washing them down some fast-moving stream that would carry them away to a distant ocean, forever adrift, forever removed from his consciousness. Several seats in front of him, the bald man slammed his wine glass down, causing some of the wine to spill onto the table. He muttered under his breath, drank more wine, then banged the glass back down again. To Patrick’s left, the young couple were whispering to each other, as if gossiping about the two lushes sharing the car with them.

He wished he were drunk. But he was all too sober. Suddenly, and with ferocious clarity, he heard the knock on his parents’ door. Dad had been gone over an hour, they were getting worried. But still, what could have happened? The car-parts store was less than three miles away.

Images, sounds, smells raced into his head, like snapshots from a nightmare. The door opening, revealing two police officers. They appeared solemn, yet mechanical. Just doing their job. Mom shrieking when she heard them say Dad had been blindsided by a teenager running a red light. The table had been set, the glasses full of water, the salad ready to eat, tossed in the flower-patterned bowl Mom had owned since before Patrick was born. Dad’s plate and silverware and napkin laid out in his spot, at the head of the table. The smell of pot roast in the oven, mashed potatoes with butter on the stovetop. And seeing the calendar on the kitchen wall, the picture showing a snowy field in some distant mountain valley, sparkling under a blue sky the color of his dad’s eyes. And on the date he had come over—February 17—Mom’s curly, pretty script: “Patrick coming for supper!”

But more than anything, he remembered the cries of his mother. She yelled at the officers, “No, no, it can’t be! This can’t be happening!” Later that night, Mom was in her bedroom, in the bed she had shared with her husband for thirty-two years, crying and saying, softly now, over and over, “No.”

And through it all, Patrick could only feel one thing, one repeating thought, bent on driving him mad: It should’ve been me. Not Dad. It should’ve been me. If only he hadn’t forgotten to buy the transmission fluid. If only he had insisted that he, not Dad, go to the store! It should’ve been me.

The train lurched again, causing some of his beer to spill. That apparently struck the young couple as funny, because they giggled harder. Patrick wished he could share even one-sixtieth of their good humor. This wasn’t working. Coming to the Lounge Car had only made things worse. He cursed himself for having gone back home for Christmas. All it accomplished was to cause these memories to bubble back up to the surface—after he had spent the last two years forcing them down. That’s why he’d moved away. He couldn’t take it anymore. Every time he visited his mom or saw Jayne, he saw the sadness in their eyes. And when he saw that, he felt condemned. He knew they didn’t do it on purpose, but he didn’t need to see it, either. Going home for the holidays, nothing had changed. So Patrick decided to leave ahead of schedule. He needed to go back to Denver, far away from his mom’s sad eyes, no matter what Jayne accused him of. Running away? Yes, he was running away. He needed to rebury those memories again. Shove them deep inside an impregnable vault where they couldn’t touch him, couldn’t harm him, couldn’t haunt him.

It should have been me.

“Shut up!” he yelled, and the bald man turned to glare at him. Even the couple stopped giggling.

He downed the remainder of his beer, then got up to leave. He realized he was better off chatting with Becca, as long as she didn’t pester him to “talk about it.”

“That was quick,” she said when he brushed past her and took his window seat again. Outside, it was full dark now.

He rested his elbow on the base of the window, cupped his chin in his hand, gazing out into the pitch nothingness of the night.

“Guess you didn’t have such a riveting time, huh?” she said.

He looked at her, and she smiled. Despite her awful scar, he actually thought she was pretty. But the scar distracted him. He tried not to fixate on it, but he couldn’t help it.

She traced the outline of the scar with her fingertips. “Mmm-hmm, I know,” she said. “Hard to miss, isn’t it?”

Immediately, he looked away, at the seatback in front of him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

She smiled again. “Hey, it’s okay. At least you weren’t staring with your mouth hanging open. People do, you know.” He swallowed, still feeling like he’d done something wrong. “I don’t mind talking about it,” she went on. “I mean, it’s a part of me, you know? It’s the first thing everyone sees.”

There was a call over the PA system, they were taking more reservations for the next meal to be served in the Dining Car. A short, fat man, middle-aged, immediately rose from his seat and waddled down the aisle. He nearly tripped and fell when the train lurched, and a blond-haired kid snickered. The fat man blushed and cursed, then walked through the doors into the adjoining car.

Becca eyed the blond kid with amusement. “You know, I wasn’t much older than him when I got this,” she said, still touching her injury. “I was only a little girl, five at the time.”

“Look, you don’t have to tell me about it,” Patrick said. They were passing through a small town now, past a darkened post office, a brick town hall, and a row of stores that appeared to be closed for the evening. “I’m sure it’s not something you like to talk about.”

She glanced past him, out the window. “I was left by myself—only for a couple of minutes, but that was all it took. I found this pair of scissors, and it was like I was in a trance or something. I wanted to see if I could make myself feel something, I had to feel something, even if it hurt. Just to see what all the fuss was about, you know? Everyone was always telling me to be careful, but I just couldn’t understand.”

That makes two of us, Patrick thought.

“Remember how I told you before you left that I wouldn’t know if it was too hot in here?” she asked. He nodded. He remembered, all right. She was a strange one. “Well, if you want to know the truth . . . you’re sitting next to a true marvel of the medical community. I’m a real find, y’know. I’m one of only sixty people in the United States with CIPA. And only a fraction of us ever get through childhood. And here I am, twenty-six and still kicking. I should get a medal or something.”

He just looked at her. Every time she opened her mouth, she lost him a little more.

“CIPA . . .” she continued, apparently sensing his confusion . . . “Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. It’s a condition you’re born with. Basically, I can’t feel any pain. I can’t feel the cold or the heat. You can kick me in the face ten times and I won’t feel a thing! Or throw me in a bucket of ice water, and I wouldn’t feel cold. Pretty crazy, huh? You should Google it sometime.”

He gave no reply, and she paused to allow him to digest it all. His first thought was that she was making it up. But then he figured she was probably telling the truth. Why would someone lie about such an odd, unheard-of condition? How would that benefit her?

“And, see, that’s what really made me want to do something to cause a sensation, to even cause pain,” she said. The train had left the small town behind, as it continued its journey over the prairie-like countryside. Soon they would cross the Mississippi River, into Iowa. A long way to go before reaching Denver. “I mean, everyone was always telling me that knives were dangerous, fire was dangerous, scissors were dangerous. But it was just words to me, you know? It didn’t mean anything. So I had to see. What can I say? I was five.

“So I went to the dresser where I knew the scissors were, and I . . . well, let’s just say I was a very curious little girl. I jabbed the sharp end into my face, right here. . .” She gently massaged a point on the scar directly beside her eye. “Good thing I didn’t go a little to the left, huh? Or else I’d be blind. But I still didn’t feel anything, and I was like, ‘What is this? What’s the big deal about scissors?’ So I pushed them in a little deeper and then I dragged them all the way down to here.” She touched the bottom of her scar, just an inch away from her chin. “And you know, I still didn’t feel anything, and I started to see all this blood. But I didn’t know what to make of it. I mean, I felt fine! So I was about to try the other side of my face, and that’s when my mom came into the room. I guess you can figure out the rest, huh?” She smiled. “They took me to the hospital, and I had to have surgery. They did the best they could, but . . . . Anyway, I try to look on the bright side. I mean, when I get a filling, they don’t need to shoot me up with Novacaine. And you know what? I can’t even sweat! How many women would love to be able to say that?”

She laughed, and he laughed with her, though he felt awkward laughing on the heels of such a grisly story. More than that, he felt dazed, as if he’d had five beers instead of only one. It was so hard to wrap his head around this, to make sense of it. But it was true. She didn’t feel pain. She was like a rock. The more he thought of it, the more he liked it.

“Man, imagine that,” he said. “No matter what happens, not to be able to feel a thing.”

She tilted her head, looked at him closely. “It’s really not such a great deal,” she said. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why not? It sounds pretty good to me.”

“But don’t you understand? I can’t feel any pain! Don’t you see what that means? I would have killed myself with those scissors if my mom hadn’t come back when she did. I would’ve killed myself without even knowing it. And even now, it’s like, I know not to do things that are dangerous, but it’s still kind of like secondhand knowledge, you know? It’s like if you read about a volcano in the Indian Ocean or something. It’s just news, information. It’s not personal. I know a knife will make me bleed, but I won’t feel the wound. You see what I’m trying to say? And what’s to stop me from burning myself on an electric stovetop? I can touch the burner, and I wouldn’t even know it’s on! Then when I look at my hand later and see all the skin is gone, I’d be like, ‘Uh oh.’ Or what if I stuck my hand in a sink full of soapy dishwater and jabbed at a piece of broken glass without even knowing it? I could slice my wrist open. Every day is like a minefield, Patrick.”

A handful of passengers walked by, most likely heading to the Dining Car. They were serving three-cheese lasagna this evening, among other possibilities, all of which sounded good. Maybe he’d go a bit later, but not now. Not now.

Becca took a deep breath. “It’s all just like a mask, a gimmick,” she explained. “I mean, I can’t feel pain, but I can still get injured. I still bleed and bruise, and my bones can still break. The feeling no pain . . . it’s just a cover-up. It doesn’t really protect me from anything. It’s like pretend. Like an act. I mean, no matter what you’re born with, or what you try to make yourself believe, the things that can hurt you will hurt you. You know what I mean?”

He was disconcerted, again, by the way she saw right through him. He wanted to deny it, to deny her, but he couldn’t. He dared to look at her, and she had concern in her eyes. Understanding. Compassion. But none of those things set him off. It was the scar. That deep, old scar that slithered its way down her cheek like the imprint of a snake fossil. He visualized Becca at five, wanting desperately to feel, even as she gouged her face and spilled her own blood. And somehow, he just couldn’t deal with that.

The tears came, suddenly and with great force. He coughed on his own phlegm, burying his face on Becca’s shoulder. His body rocked and jerked. He was sure he caused Becca to rock and jerk right along with him, but he couldn’t stop.

“That’s right,” Becca said, putting an arm around him as he kept on crying. “You just let it out.”

He was aware, vaguely, that people were staring at him. He sensed the blond kid’s eyes boring a hole through Becca’s back and right into his head. But he didn’t care. He was aware, too, that this was the first he had cried since . . . he couldn’t even remember the last time. He just knew he hadn’t cried since Dad’s death. Not at hearing the news. Not at the funeral. Not even when he moved away from home, halfway across the continent. And certainly not yesterday, with his mom and sister. When he saw them crying, he never thought it did them any good. What was the point? People needed to move past their losses, push them away. If you gave into them, they would paralyze you. That’s why he’d never allowed himself to cry. He always feared that once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He thought he’d only get bogged down in the morass of guilt and regrets and lost dreams that floated high above, always out of reach.

But when the tears finally slowed, and then stopped, he found that he felt better than he had in a long time, as though a monstrous weight had been lifted from him. He sat upright again, not looking at Becca, and peered out the window at the blackness, at nothing.

“Better?” she asked.

He shrugged, nodded, still not looking at her.

She reached over, gently turned his face to hers. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all right.”

He felt a lump in his throat, and worried he might cry again. But he didn’t.

“So,” she said, “you ready to talk about it now?”

He looked into the green eyes of this stranger, this scarred woman he had chanced to meet on his long way back to the studio apartment where he laid his head down to sleep each night. Where he was running back to as a desperate man in search of a refuge. But it wasn’t a refuge. He knew that now. It never had been. He looked at this stranger who was no longer a stranger, this friend who had seen him more clearly than anyone ever had. Even himself.

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I like it, a lot. It really relates to me and how I’ve for the most part managed to get through life. You also did something here that I do when I write – physicalizing emotions, especially the hard to deal with ones. 🙂

WOW…wow! I’m stunned. This is so good Mike. It’s a wonderful stand-alone story that you could continue easily. But you know…I think it’s perfect the way it is. That way, I’m allowed to take it anywhere I want in my own imagination. I can leave them on the train forever, just travelling around – comfortable in each other’s company. Great characters. I could see it all happening as I read.

Amazing story Mike, In fact I still have water logged eyes!.. ..
I know when the author has talent, its when you have the gift of creating the scenes in my mind…
You did that brilliantly.. and your very clever take on two perspectives of one who was burying their pain and running away from facing it.. And Becca whose need to feel pain and understand what it meant had led her to disfigure herself..
And yet her compassion and clear sight of another’s emotional pain was so obvious as she spoke to Patrick. ..

Brilliant piece of writing Mike……. Loved it from the first word to the last…..

Mike I meant every word, I may not always have time to comment but I do read when I can your posts, sometimes via my phone which makes commenting difficult.. But you have a huge talent and such insight to the workings of peoples thoughts and emotions…… Thank you! 🙂

Michael, you are incredibly talented. I loved this short story. Have you published it yet? If not, you definitely should. It is a remarkable piece. I knew you were talented when I reviewed your Eye Dancers’ book on my blog. I really enjoyed that one too. This one is different. It shows a sensitive, touching side of you that is very endearing. Thank you for sharing. Good luck with this one. Keep in touch. I always like to hear how you are doing and how well your books are selling! You will be famous one day. Remember us little people. Best Wishes always!